My son hasn’t been able to walk for a few weeks now. His heel bone has been killing him, which is only funny because I didn’t know your heel bone was capable of killing you. I imagined it was much like your brain; you could fillet it and scoop it out and grill it while fully conscious and you’d never know, because for some reason god decided to make The Most Important organ in your body without any nerves at all. Also, delicious, or so I’m told. Intelligent Design, my fat white ass.

Anyway, the kid has been gimping around here with a pouty face rivaled only by 17 year old anorexic porn start wanna-bes and that’s funny because he’s also breaking out in epic proportions and so totally not eating anything. This from the kid that will eat anything that is incapable of eating him back. Either he’s watching his figure and bored already with his newly-acquired vegan lifestyle, or he’s going through a massive growth spurt.

Two weeks before school starts. Exactly when all the super good sales are going on. He hates me; he really does.

His knees have been aching, his bones are burning, his hips are making him cry. So yeah, he’s going to be taller than me in 3.6 hours. Either that or he’s caught the Black Death, which he’ll catch anyway if I have to buy that kid another shoe wardrobe this year. Seriously, he was a size 4 junior in January. His new Crocs? Men’s 6. Six. MEN’S. I don’t even want to talk about the store I had to go school shirt shopping at for him, sufficed to say that I picked myself up a few tank tops while I was there and I can handle sharing Clearasil with him and I can even handle the whole “wash your own damn sheets” conversation, but this shopping at the same store as my firstborn? It’s just too much reality for one girl to handle.

Yesterday, we went to visit my neighbor who just moved out a few weeks ago and over tea and, yes, one entire carrot cake later *burp*, she told me about her friend’s son who is currently in hospital because he keeps having seizures which are abruptly followed with, you guessed it, aching heels, burning femurs and throbbing hips. It’s moved into his arms now, and his legs are collapsing in on each other. This is not information I wanted, especially since I keep sending my son to golf camp every day, and golf camp typically involves the slightest bit of walking for fucking ever.

I came home last night fully intent on taking him to the doctor’s office first thing this morning, after golf camp of course, but talked myself out of it when I sent my kids to bed. Because I’ve done the whole, “Dude, your kid has a mosquito bite, not the measles” thing and I’ve gotten the, “Seriously, three kids later and you still don’t know the croup when you see it?” lecture, which comes at the lowlow price of $3,000 and I just don’t have any interest in sitting in a doctor’s office, scarring the fuck out of my kid, and getting told to have him drink more milk and shall we up your happy pill medication, Captain Münchhausen?

When the first scream came, it sounded like anger. Whatever; they’ll work it out. The second scream sounded like pain. They better get their fucking asses in bed, I cautioned the ceiling. The third scream sounded exactly like the sound you have nightmares about your children making. The kind of scream that makes your uterus wince. I ran, 2of3 ran, hell…3of3 dropped what she was doing and ran to the hallway, where we found 1of3 drowning in tears, with a purple face and a sewing needle sticking straight up from his toenail.

Not since he was a toddler have I heard that sound come out of his mouth. I am not prone to freaking out, but I Freaked. The. Fuck. Out. He freaked out. 2of3 freaked out. 3of3 said, “Yay! I get band-aids!” She’s kind of dead inside, I think, or disturbingly obsessed with band-aids. Once we ripped the needle out of the toenail and the blood did its squirt-squirt thing all over the floor and he started breathing again, we limped him downstairs and iced his toe with frozen strawberries. Because I suck at Prepared Mom, that’s why.  Dad defied every posted speed limit in North America and battled a crack whore doing her week’s grocery shopping at the 7-11 to procure one bag of ice for us, and we all watched Family Guy until 11 while my son’s toe numbed enough that he could get to sleep for golf camp in the morning.

I paid a lot of money for golf camp. And will again for therapy, just later.

And karma once again sunk her yellow pointy teeth into my ass by making damn good and sure my kid did get to the doctor’s after all, and since I am so lousy at the mom thing that I won’t even take my kid to the doctor when he’s got alien armies harvesting his leg bone marrow to keep their hair shiny, now I get to take him for a tetanus shot, which is awesome only because, yeah, he’s totally not afraid of needles now or anything.

Yes, yes, we totally live in Vancouver, and have for years, but A) I am not over Denver yet and B) for the purposes of this post, we are from Denver. Someday, I’ll actually move here all the way.

We are from Denver. Not ‘just outside Denver in the ‘burbs’ Denver, but Denver Denver. LoDo. Cap Hill. The city of. 80206 has always been the kids’ zip code. And when you live in 80206, there are things you do like walk to school and ride your bikes to the park and there are things you don’t do, like any of that alone.

Right before we moved to Vancouver, we were just starting to toy with the idea of letting the kids be home alone. We’d give them 10 minute spurts alone while we ran to Sevies for milk, but not much more, no matter how ardently they plead for it. Because Denver is awesome in the same way god is; you totally dig him, but you’re kind of scared shitless of him at the same time.

Case in point? A year after we moved, our old next door neighbor shot and killed a 2 year old right in front of the house we lived in. Like, on our old front steps. Like, right here.

And we lived in the really burbish, hippy neighborhood. A few years before that, one of our neighbors decided he would go rape a bunch of the women in our neighborhood. Like, 80 year olds and 20 year olds. At the same time. And he lived at the end of that block I lived on, and two houses to the right. But at the same time, we had mom & pop ice cream parlors and yarn shops.

My point is that, for the most part, we kept our kids within arm’s reach, just in case.

But since we’ve been here in sunny Vancouver, the boys have gotten used to a little more freedom, mostly because my neighbors actually scolded me for hovering over the kids too much. We were reminded that this wasn’t Denver, and that in our little community the kids enjoy and appreciate a bit longer leash.  That it is good for them, and I ought to relax.  So we gave this whole pre-teen freedom thing a shot, since they are quite a bit older now, and they’re quite a bit over being smothered, and so far my neighbors have been proven correct.  At first we’d let just them go outside all by themselves, and then we tried leaving them for 30 minutes or so while we ran out for something. And then I started coming home just a little bit after they’d get home from school.  And then I upped it to an hour.  And then we left the boys for one whole evening.  And then we let 1of3 babysit for a night, and it’s all gone beautifully.  Viva la Canada, yo.

They lock the extra locks when we’re out, they know to not answer the door or the phone unless it’s mom or dad on the caller id; they get it.  They like it, and they don’t want to blow it, so they’ve been really careful to abide by all of our rules while we’re not here.  Or at least they were.

When I told them about the BlogHer get-together we had on Sunday, their eyes did Gold Medal Worthy backflips into their heads and they said there was no way in Bikini Bottom they were coming to that thing. We agreed that they’d stay home and do some last minute chores (which have yet to be done, for the record) and that they could each have one friend over.  Two neighbors were put on mom-alert to peek in my windows occasionally and make sure they weren’t burning the joint down, and 3of3, Angella and I headed off without them for the whole day.

We came home to a fairly decent house, two living, breathing sons who were fed and didn’t smell like anything I’d want to put on a petri dish, and two smiling neighborhood kids.  I counted the day a success and told them both how proud I was of them, even if they hadn’t answered the phone when I’d called, but erring on the side of caution is always a good choice in my book so high fives all around.

The next day, my sister in law called.  She asked if 2of3 had told me she’d phoned, and he hadn’t, and then she giggled and told me about the call they had.

He told her I wasn’t home because I was at a work thing.  He told her dad was at work, too.  He told her that he was trying to not watch tv because it would rot his brain, and that he was duelling Pokemon cards while his brother was downstairs on the computer.  He told her he was going to skateboard out front in just a little bit, and then he’d have a snack. And then he asked her just one, simple, little question…

Um, who is this?

Needless to say, they’re coming to the next everything ever again with me.

When my boys were little, pre video games, pre going to the park with friends, when it was just them and me and a lifetime of time, we used to play this little game my mother played with us when we were little.  I’d take my shirt off, lay on the floor, and have them write letters on my back with their fingers.  I’d try to guess the letters, and even when I knew I always guessed wrong because there is no greater feeling in the world than outsmarting your mom.

Not only did they learn to write the alphabet really fast, but I got a little baby massage out of the deal.  Win tothefucking win, yo.

When they started to bore with that game, we upped the ante.  I’d get down to my chonies, lay on the floor and give them ball point pens or sharpies.  They’d give me tattoos.  They’d usually start with my fish and “finish” them, and then they’d go out from there.  By the end, I had a full body tattoo, I’d blown at least an hour,  if not two, and my kids had sugarplum wishes and ice cream dreams of being tattoo artists when they grow up.  Because there is no greater feeling than having your kids understand that there’s something more to art than painting or sculpting, that it comes in all shapes and sizes and needle gauges.

And damn it, that shit felt awesome.  And it annoyed the holy fuck out of my husband.  Win tothemotherfucking win, yo.

Downside? Kind of hard to explain at work the next day.

So when I asked them last night to come mark and measure my back for my tattoo at BlogHer, I thought nothing at all of it.  Seems par for the course, right?  Funny how you forget that what seems like exactly just yesterday with your kids can actually be fairly close to a decade ago and they’ve got Pokemon cheat codes and Green Day lyrics and french grocery lists to store in their brains…they can’t be bothered to remember some totally endearing childhood moments or anything.  They about died when I told them what I needed them to do. I reminded them that they used to do this all the time with me and they both looked at me like I was an insane person.  

Like they’re the first or something. Pshaw.

So I bribed them.  They accepted my terms and I started to take my shirt off.  My 11 years old’s eyeballs turned and began to claw their way back into his skull.  My 9 year old lept, LEPT backwards.  I said look, dudes.  You see my in my chonies all the time and they said ohmygod ewwwww mom! and I said you know what?  It’s the exact same thing as a swimsuit exactly and the 11 year old said okay, I’ll keep telling myself that.

{Note for Future 1of3 and 2of3: The reason it is so frightening to see me in a swimsuit or my chonies is that YOU DID THIS TO ME.  I looked like a blond Megan Fox before I opted to give you life, and you made me gain 105 pounds and they you made me gain 80 pounds, and it was totally worth it, so shut up.  Momma loves you.}

Once the measuring tapes and the ink pens and the schematics came out, they were fine.  They got right down to business and did a fantastic job making and marking all the right measurements, and then I made them take pictures of said back to send to my designer. They have never been so happy in their whole lives, partly because they got to use the big, new camera and partly because there is no greater way to humiliate their mother than taking photographs of her almost totally naked.  Because you know she’s just going to plaster them all over the freaking internet.

Trying to lose some weight for summer, but don’t have the right motivation?  Have my boys come take pictures of you in all your saggy-backed glory under halogen track lights.  You’ll go throw up right that second and start the hardest diet and exercise routine of your life the next morning.  Or drown your sorrows in cheesecake.  Either way, win tothe win, yo.

PS: if you need a tattoo designer say, oh, for a tattoo you want to get at BlogHer, leave a comment and I’ll send you his email.  You wouldn’t believe how good he is.

PPS: If even one of you tells me I look hot, or you’d kill for a back like that, I will punch you square in the teeth.  I am 5’4″.  And I cropped the ass out.

PPPS: Grab the badge.  Just sayin’.

What happens in my house when the 3rd grade child says he’s bored and he would like to read one of your books and can he read this one that’s written by Homer Simpson?

Um, we don’t have any books written by Homer Simpson.

Yes huh, right here.  It’s called the Ode-whys-easy?

The Odyssey?  You want to read Homer’s The Odyssey?

Yup.

Hold on just a minute, okay?

(Emails the only person I know who’s ever bothered to actually read that book)

(Gets no response)

(Takes matters into my own hands)

Sure, you can read it.  You can read anything on my shelf.  But first, get your coat.

And just like that, they had a brand new present and no one had to wrap their brains around some 8th century b.c. poem written in Ionic Greek.

*But now I kind of want to.

**Yes, the other kid has a huge hole in his pants.  He’s 10; he makes his own fashion mistakes now.

***I’m fully aware I could have just thrown O Brother on.

I totally keep forgetting to mention: I randomized that perfume contest, because you people are all too funny, and Secret Agent Mama’s number got picked. Congrats, baby. And RAWR.

The good news: I’m clearly doing something right.

This is my daughter’s plant.  I bought that and killed that for her over the summer.  She loves it.  She waters it and talks to it and moves it around the house to make sure it gets maximum sunlight.

The other day, when I was douching the living room, I tossed it in the trash when she wasn’t looking.  About an hour later, she comes to me with the pot in one hand, the plant in the other, shmuck all over the front of her from digging through the trash, and with big, green eyes began the following conversation:

“Momma, what you DO?”  Honey, I threw that in the trash.  It’s dead, baby.

“Momma, you say you sorry me.”  Um, sorry?

“What you sorry for, momma?”  *taps toe on floor*  I’m sorry I threw your plant in the trash, baby.

“Dat’s okay momma.  You fix it.”

So, yeah, I wiped the old coffee grounds and yucky trash off of the plant, dug a little hole in the soil, crammed the old, broken off, dead as a doorknob plant into that hole, and put her plant back up with the others.

The point?  Though my child has never actually uttered I’m and Sorry in the same sentence, she clearly gets the concept.  Score one for me.

The bad news: That may be the only thing I’ve done right.

We’re parking at the mall the other night, on our way to IHop and then to do some shopping, and as I park the car the kids have hit the peak of their messing with each other in the backseat.  The boys are screaming Stop Touching Me and AAAAAAHHHH and 3of3 pipes in, “You shut you fucking you moufs!”

Me: Um, what?

1of3:  *snort*

2of3: Did you HEAR that, mom?

3of3: You shut you fucking you MOUF, 2of3!

Me: WHERE DID SHE HEAR THAT?

1of3: You?

2of3: Mom, that’s not all.  She calls Niblow “That EFFING Gerbil”, too.

Me: *sinks into deep whole and dies* *gets kids out of car*

3of3: Fucking gerbil!  Fucking gerbil!  Fucking gerbil!

(How many Richard Gere hits do you think I’ll get?  Bets happily accepted)

I swear with God as my witness, I have never ever told her to shut her fucking mouth.  Never.  EVER.  Still, I am SO TOTALLY HOSED OVER HERE.  Unless my kid is going to grow up to be a longshoreman, I need to fix this.  Immediately.  So I’ve started saying beautiful every time I think I might want to say f’ing.  Which?  Is really hilarious in application.  And it’s working so far.

And I’m not sure if it was just that one day or forever, but there’s a good chance we are banned from IHop for the rest of ours lives.